Pages

Friday, December 31, 2010

Out with the New in with the Old

While I was sick I did a lot of reading. The Christian based book I read consisted of historical prairie Christmas stories. It was refreshing to read how women lived in the 1800s. Women didn't cook for fun but for necessity. Everything was made from scratch. For quick filling meals, women prepared biscuits and gravy or soup with homemade bread. I felt inspired by the women in this book. How quickly I run to the store and buy the ingredients that I need. Women in this era traveled by dusty long wagon rides into town to purchase their ingredients.
In The Southern Heritage Cakes Cookbook, it explains how women's baking flourished after the introduction of baking powder and the rotary beater. Cakes were given names from either famous people or places like General Robert E. Lee cake, Williamsburg Orange cake, etc.

I felt like I had experienced a little of what it was like to be in an era like this when Hurricane Katrina hit. My dad made a brick lined pit and topped it with a broken wrought iron table to make a grill. My mom used all her cast iron pots and pans and even a blue speckled tin pot to do all of her cooking. I helped her prepare biscuits, peach cobbler, and bread pudding cooked in a cast iron pan tented with aluminum foil to act as an oven. Besides participating in cleaning up fallen tree limbs and debris, I helped my mom prepare each meal. This was an endeavour when a fire had to be built and we didn't have running water or electricity. How easily we take for granted the things that we use every day.

I decided I was going to make an old fashioned dessert. I can't say that the idea at first sounded that appealing to me but I was going to make it taste good. My mom told me how her mom used leftover rice to make rice pudding. It is a very economical dessert in this respect. After some research, I discovered that this dessert is consumed worldwide. In the Phillippines there is Champorado (chocolate rice pudding). Kheer is a slow boiled milk rice pudding from India. Add milk, eggs, raisins, and orange peel to rice to make Budino di Riso, Italian rice pudding.

For my rice pudding, I prepared Vanilla Bean Rice Pudding. I used cooked Jasmine rice and a whole vanilla bean. I loved the fragrant aroma and robust flavor the vanilla bean added to the rice pudding.
From my recent trip to New York, I was inspired to prepare toppings to go on my rice pudding from a place we visited called Rice to Riches. It was like walking into a yogurt shop. There were multiple rice pudding flavors such as cheesecake and chocolate chip. Then there were topping choices such as roasted strawberries and toasted coconut.
I prepared an almond brittle to top my vanilla rice pudding. It added a great contrast of textures. I don't consider rice pudding old-fashioned any more; it has been revitalized.

Prepare my rice pudding recipe this New Year's for your friends and family and enjoy a taste of the past as you celebrate the new year.

I just love the way how you cooked and how you move in the kitchen I watch all the episode of the master chef. Hmmm samporado I missed it ! Happy new year Whitney and blessed you and your family all the best for thew new year.God bless !!! www.myfurryplace.com

hey whitney, congrats on winning masterchef. i loved the way u baked those coconut and lemon cupcakes on the show and so i am into making cupcakes at the moment. is there any way for me to get the recipe?

Find My New Cook Book on Amazon

About Me

Growing up in a very food, faith, and family-oriented environment, she was always in the kitchen cooking with her mom and two sisters or her great-grandmother, who is ninety-five today and still cooking. Benefiting from her great-grandmother’s inspiration in southern hospitality and cooking large Sunday dinners for extended family and friends, Whitney has aspired to be a great cook from an early age. In her senior year at the University of Southern Mississippi, at the age of twenty two, she auditioned and won Fox’s show “Masterchef” and gained the title of Fox’s 1st U. S. Masterchef. Also, because of her talent on the show with desserts, Whitney was deemed the “Pastry Princess.”
Since winning “Masterchef,” Whitney has spent time doing cooking demonstrations such as Anaheim’s Celebrity Food and Gift Show with TLC’s Little Chocolatiers. She also has acted as celebrity judge for numerous cooking contests such as B.I.O Special Events Wedding Cake Competition with Duff Goldman. Whitney's cookbook- Modern Hospitality: Simple Recipes with Southern Charm was released on July 5, 2011.